It’s so rare that I get to say “I told you so.” Remember this from last month?
My hunch is that we’re going to end up playing a game with the left about this, as even though most of them won’t admit it, the obvious provocation here will bug many of them too. (Especially lefty New Yorkers.) They’ll tut-tut about wingnut overreaction and tolerance and so forth because that’s just how they roll, but secretly plenty of them will be perfectly fine with conservatives kicking up a media fuss until the mosque is forced to relocate.
Now here’s Quinnipiac. Note the agreement across both racial, age, and party lines:
In hindsight I should have said that the mosque will bug Democrats, not “lefties,” but my basic point stands: This is not a “Republican issue.” Note too that the results aren’t a byproduct of any sort of free-floating anti-Muslim animus in the City. Fifty-six percent of New Yorkers say they know a Muslim personally, 44 percent say they have a favorable opinion of Islam (versus 28 percent who say they don’t), and 55 percent say Islam is a peaceful religion. It’s not that the City is suspicious of mosques generally, in other words, it’s that it’s suspicious of a mosque there, which has been the objection all along. And with good reason. So much for healing.
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